ALBUQUERQUE: A 78-year-old man who volunteers at the county jail doing religious studies with inmates unknowingly became a drug mule in a smuggling plot, sheriff’s deputies say.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, which monitors criminal activity in the county jail, says an inmate and his girlfriend conspired to smuggle drugs into the jail by gluing them to the pages of a Bible, which the volunteer was then supposed to give to the inmate.
Sheriff’s deputies were told by a confidential informant that inmate Anthony Christopher Chavez and his girlfriend, Tasha Richards, were smuggling drugs. Chavez was in jail awaiting trial on charges that he killed his 4-year-old daughter in 2012.
MDC staffers listened to phone calls between Chavez and Richards, which confirmed the suspicion that they were smuggling drugs into the jail, according to a criminal complaint.
When deputies interviewed Richards, who was on probation, she denied involvement at first. But she eventually told deputies that Chavez told her to buy the Bible and showed deputies two Bibles she had in her closet.
She said she then bought Suboxone, a drug used to wean addicts off of heroin, and heroin, according to the complaint. An acquaintance’s mother put the drugs in the Bible, and someone delivered it to the religious volunteer.
Deputies met with the volunteer and took the suspected Bible. Inside, they found 37 Suboxone strips glued to the front and back pages, two pieces of plastic flattened between the pages holding a total of 2.4 grams of black tar heroin, and about a gram of methamphetamine tucked into the Bible’s binder pocket, according to the complaint.
Jail staffers had previously found cut-up Bibles in the jail but didn’t realize they were connected to drug smuggling, said BCSO Sgt. Aaron Williamson.
He said the volunteer had no idea he was bringing drugs into the jail.
“He was completely unaware of what he was doing,” Williamson said. “He thought it was great that somebody in the community was buying Bibles for inmates, and he was more than happy to deliver those Bibles.”
Richards was arrested and charged with two counts of trafficking a controlled substance and two counts of conspiracy to traffic a controlled substance. Chavez is facing the same charges and was rebooked into the jail on those charges.
When he appeared before a judge for the first time Thursday in Metropolitan Court, Chavez’s attorney argued that there was no probable cause and the judge agreed, according to KOAT-TV. The judge said it’s up to the District Attorney’s Office to seek an indictment of Chavez.
Williamson said deputies are looking into whether anyone else will face charges in the alleged plot.
